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Category Archives: Home Maintenance

These ideas are going to be hit-your-forehead-why-didn’t-I-do-this-before revelations. If you’re planning to sell your home, consider doing them even though you’ll miss out on the enjoyment of them after you move. Here’s number one on buyers’ wish list according to according to the annual National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) survey, “What Home Buyers Really Want.”

Yes, that’s an upscale ceiling fan. That’s it. Do it.

These improvements may not add dollar-for-dollar value, but if your home has them and the competition doesn’t, your home will sell faster.

There’s more in this fantastic article from the National Association of Realtors.®

We all should be looking for ways to conserve water. But most of us would like some attractive landscaping. Enter the xeriscape. Xeriscapes require just a fraction of the water you’d generally use to keep your landscape lush. A University of Georgia study found that homes with xeriscapes saved approximately 9,450 gallons of water, shaving off nearly $23 in water expenses each month.

Proving once again that the Greeks were ahead of the times, the term “xeriscape” comes from the Greek word “xeros,” meaning dry. Xeriscape is best suited to drought-prone areas, particularly in the Southwest, but the basics can apply to any landscape.

To conserve water and save money on landscape maintenance, follow these tips.

1. Get smart about watering. Water your landscape with a drip irrigation system or soaker hoses. Both water plants at the roots, which is crucial for conservation. Be mindful of rainfall, which can lead to overwatering – you can “set it and forget it” with a rain sensor add-on.

2. Supplement the soil. The success of a xeriscape depends heavily on soil. Fortify soil with compost or manure to balance water retention, and cover with a layer of mulch (think leaves or wood chips) for added absorption. Less mulch will be needed as your xeriscape develops.

3. Draw new turf borders. Another key component of a xeriscape is smaller sections of grass, which – you guessed it – need less water to get the job done. To maintain these areas, use a reel mower to trim the blades by just a third. Taller grass acts as natural mulch, which results in decreased water usage.

4. Go native. Aside from grassy areas, most xeriscapes are home to native plants that thrive despite limited water. In drought areas, ideal plants include cacti, agave, juniper and lavender; herbs like thyme and sage and foods like sapodilla fruits or black walnuts also flourish without excessive watering.

If you plan to sell your Flagstaff home this year, my recommendation remains: Don’t spend any money on home improvements until you consult with your Realtor.® If you have a limited budget (as everyone does), you want to make sure your money is spent where it will have the greatest impact.

When I approach a house for a listing evaluation, I look at the entryway and front door. These should be neat, tidy and in good repair. If the door is the paintable type, a fresh coat of paint is always a good idea. (And, I know a painting company that may do it for free if you allow them to prepare a bid for the rest of the house.) This recommendation comports with the latest Annual Cost vs. Value Remodeling Project report’s recommendation that the #1 value is replacing the front door with a steel entry door. If the garage door faces the street and is a mess, that’s high in the ranking this year, too. Making a first impression is important.

Next, we’ll consider all the fundamentals (roof, furnace, water heater, electrical system and structure). If you’re confident they will pass a buyer’s home inspection, we’ll move on to other things. If you’re not sure of those things, I suggest getting a handle on those potential costs by having a formal home inspection. That will cost $400-$500.

If you get past the entryway and the fundamentals here are some cosmetic things we may suggest:

1) Improve flooring. Wood, tile, and bad carpet can be a show-stopper. If the flooring is chipped, torn, or dirty, buyers will think your home hasn’t been cared for properly, which could result in a lower offer — or no sale at all.

2) Replace or add molding and baseboards. Some homeowners are shy to experiment with this, especially if they live in a small home, but it can be very attractive in any size home. The measly baseboard that builders often use simply looks cheap. Adding a wider baseboard and a fresh coat of paint makes the room come to life.

3) Paint. Accent walls, or even just fresh paint throughout makes a lasting impression. Spend a couple hundred dollars more to make the trim a different color – that really dresses up a room. Choose colors and textures wisely. Don’t get carried away with a color you love (e.g. purple walls). Remember, that you want your home to appeal to the masses. You can always paint your new home purple!

An out-of-shape house is older than its years and could lose 10% of its appraised value, says Mack Strickland, an appraiser and real estate agent in Chester, Va. But good maintenance can even add value. A study out of the University of Connecticut and Syracuse University finds that regular maintenance increases the value of a home by about 1% each year. Focus on the #1 enemy of home deterioration – moisture.

Water can destroy the integrity of your foundation, roof, walls, and floors — your home’s entire structure. So a leaky gutter isn’t just annoying; it’s compromising your foundation. Keeping moisture at bay will improve your home’s effective age and protect its value. It’ll also help you prioritize what you need to do. Here’s how:

Follow This Easy 4-Step Routine

1.When it rains, actively pay attention. Are your gutters overflowing? Is water flowing away from your house like it should? Is water coming inside?

2.After heavy rains and storms, do a quick inspection of your roof, siding, foundation, windows, doors, ceilings, and basement to spot any damage or leaks.

3.Mark your calendar to do spring and fall checks of water-related appliances like your washer, refrigerator, water heater, HVAC (condensation in your HVAC can cause leaks) or swamp cooler, and sump pump. It’s also a great time to do regular maintenance on them. Inspect any outdoor spigots and watering systems for leaks, too.

4.Don’t procrastinate when you spot minor leaks or drips inside your house. Ongoing small leaks can slowly erode pipes and fixtures, and even causemold and mildew issuesyou won’t notice until it’s too late. As an example, a bit of cracked caulk around the kitchen window may not seem like much, but behind that caulk, water could get into your sheathing, causing mold damage and rot. Before you know it, you’re looking at a $5,000 repair that could have been prevented by a tube of caulk and a half hour of your time. (Unfortunately, I’ve lived through this problem.)

In most households without small children, the shower gets more use than the bathtub. That’s why many new homes that I’ve seen recently in Flagstaff feature over-sized showers in their master baths, and even in secondary bathrooms if they are three or four bathroom homes. Over-sized showers with lots of light and perhaps even some snazzy gadgets certainly lend a home a touch of luxury. Do they add value, making remodels worth doing — other than for your own pleasure, of course?

Remodeling is NEVER “worth it” in raw dollar calculations, according to “Cost vs. Value Trends” survey conducted jointly for many years by the National Association of Realtors® in cooperation with remodeling contractors. The latest survey shows you are likely to recover about 75% of the dollars that you put into a bathroom remodel. So, perhaps you want to enjoy the benefit for a few years before trying to sell. This survey is talking major remodel; however, not the replacement of a leaky faucet — that should be done as part of your staging work.

Also, to preserve your resale value, a home should always have at least one bathtub. Buyers with small children need it, and sometimes all of us do for medical reasons. So, create a snazzy shower in your master bath if you like, but keep the small tub in the hallway bathroom.

Did your home come with manuals for your GFCIs? I’ve never seen one and I’ve never seen or heard of anyone testing a GFCI except a home inspector during a pre-sale home inspection. I didn’t know until recently that these little devices are designed to be tested MONTHLY! Thanks to this blog post from a home inspector who blogs on Active Rain, I now know.

When these devices first appeared, in the 1970s, they were only found inside electrical boxes. Now they are in electrical outlets in bathrooms, kitchens, garages and outdoors. Sometimes, if one is not working in one bathroom, it will make the ones in all the other bathrooms not work. Sometimes one in the kitchen is connected to the garage — yes, it can be weird. It’s good to run a test so you know what works where in case you have to reset one at midnight.

I love my dogs. Are they perfect? Absolutely not. This might create a problem if I were trying to sell my home.

If you have (or have had) pets in your home and want to sell, please talk with me before you take the first step to fix any issues you think may exist. And, if you think there are no issues, we need to talk about that, too, before you put your house on the market.

Pet Odors

Most of you know that smelly carpets will impair the sale of your home. But what, exactly, do you do about that? Please don’t jump into the easy and obvious fix of putting in new carpet without carefully digging to the root of the problem. Beyond the carpet and pad, some odors may come from subflooring (wood or concrete) and others from drywall and baseboard or draperies. Some of these can be detected with black light inspections. Worst case: You replace the carpet; smell isn’t gone. Several weeks after multiple showings and now offers, you find yourself pulling up the brand new carpet and cutting out wall board to fix the problem in order to get the house sold. Don’t go there!

Smells may be in things that aren’t going to be sold with the house, like that cozy chair which no one sits in any longer except old Ruff. Let’s buy Ruff a new, washable dog bed and get rid of the chair during the time the home is listed for sale. Likewise, clean the litter box daily and double-check it just before showings. (Best thing: empty it and take it away with the cat during showings.) You may have become accustomed to these smells. The buyer and their agent haven’t. Let’s strategize.

Disclose: You’ve had a pet in the past and you think you’ve gotten rid of the smell. When you fill out the seller property disclosure form, let the buyer know that pets have lived in the house in the past. It won’t hurt and disclosure of the existence of a pet in the house in the past will protect you when during the next rainy season that buyer’s very sensitive nose picks up a faint odor of Fluffy.

Pet Safety

Too often, I see a notice on houses I’m planning to show: “Please don’t let the cat out.” Well, what if the cat does get out? Watching a cat and guarding it from sneaking out a door is NOT the buyers’ agents’ job. Pointing out the features of your home and watching their buyer/client is their job. Babysitting your cat or dog is incompatible with that.

More on Pet Distractions

“We’ll just gate Bonzo in the laundry room,” or lock him in the garage or the shed, or put him in a crate. No, please. Bonzo will bark. Bonzo will be a distraction. The buyers and their agent can’t wait to get away from that barking (or whining), so they are not going to linger and enjoy your home.

An aquarium full of snakes will drive buyers out of the home. An overly large aquarium full of lovely fish will distract from the room you want the buyers to consider buying. Let’s talk!

Pet Liability

“Fido is very sweet with everyone, and he won’t run away if someone leaves the door open.” That is when you are around. None of us really knows what our pets do when we are not around to give them assurance. Don’t take the chances that (1) Fido will dart out the door in fear if a stranger opens it; (2) the elderly prospective buyer will trip over your cat who insists on rubbing against her legs; (3) your Yorkie will nip the three-year old who insists on pulling her tail.

And back to locking up your dog in the garage, shed, laundry room, etc. The prospective buyers are likely to try to sneak a peek – and get a bite instead. Or your precious puppy will scoot out and away. Don’t take those risks! Plus, you want them to see all the rooms, don’t you?

If there is a pet in a home that I’m asked to list, or a smell from one in the past, this topic will be on the agenda for our first meeting. Pets can hinder the sale of your home and create liability for both of us. Let’s figure out how to approach this problem together. Here’s my Flagstaff real estate website.

QUESTION:We want to replace the rickety old fence that separates our backyard from our neighbor’s yard with a new one. Do we have to get our neighbor’s permission first? Would he be required to pay half of the cost? Also, how tall could the new fence be?

ANSWER: You would have to get your neighbor’s permission to tear down the fence and build a new one if it straddles the property line. If you have a survey that shows that the fence is clearly on your side of the property’s boundary, you probably can move forward without first gaining his approval.

Either way, your neighbor is likely under no legal obligation to pay half the cost — though an exception might be made if, say, the fence is indeed on the boundary and poses a danger to your family or the general public. If the fence is in good shape, but you’re simply tired of looking at it, expect to foot the bill for its replacement by yourself, unless the person next door shares your opinion.

You’ll have to call the City of Flagstaff or Coconino County building department to find out how high the new fence or wall can be. Six feet in back is common and four in front. If you hire a professional fencing company, they will do this for you as part of the permit process. Homeowner’s Associations also must approve in certain neighborhoods (Ponderosa Trails and Boulder Pointe, for example). And, fences are simply forbidden in some Flagstaff neighborhoods (Elk Run and Continental).

Homeowners looking for the most return on their investment when it comes to remodeling should consider exterior replacement projects

NEVER expect to recoup 100% of any remodeling project when you sell your Flagstaff home. But, remodeling may speed the sale of your home. According to the 2013 Remodeling Cost vs. Value Report, Realtors® rated exterior projects among the most valuable home improvement projects. Some of the least expensive projects — like replacing a front door — provide the highest return value.